Making yourself more attractive to employers

We’ve all been through it: how do you make yourself stand out from the crowd and convince potential employers that you are the one to hire.

Here recruitment expert Fiona Wilson of FJWilson gives her top tips on making yourself more attractive to employers  especially if you are entering the job market for the first time.

Your CV – It sounds obvious but a well written CV is vital, with no spelling or grammatical errors. Your CV is the first contact you have with an employer: make sure it gives the right impression. Get someone else to read it through before sending  they might pick up something you have missed

Social media – Develop a professional profile on social media. Recruiters/ employers are increasingly looking at on-line activity when long-listing. Make sure your profile photos on Facebook, Twitter etc. are what you would like a prospective employer to see; ensure you have the relevant security settings and that any photos/ tweets/ comments that you wouldn’t want an employer seeing are hidden from public view.

Market yourself – Make sure you have a profile on LinkedIn and that your profile/ title contains the obvious search words that a recruiter/ employer would be using to search for candidates for the role you want to get.

Be concise – avoid wordy paragraphs. Go instead for clear bullet points which draw out what you have done and achieved in each of the roles you’ve had (whether as the captain of the rugby team, in a part-time role or work placement). Always try to summarise the impact you personally made.

After the interview – Once you’d done all of the above and had the interview, always follow up with a brief, personalised thank you note or email. It makes a difference.

If you don’t get the job, then remember: only a small minority of people land their dream job straight from university  so don’t let rejection get you down. If you retain your enthusiasm, your hard work will pay off.

Many top organizations recruit from campuses. This is a good platform for that 1st crucial break. For others, begining with a mid-tier accounting / audit firm and gradually shifting to industry might be an option